The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose

“Yes,” Angelina gulped. “I mean, no. Sorry, Bessie—I gotta go.” And she blundered off down the street, nearly running into Myra May Mosswell, who was just coming out of the diner, carrying her shopping basket and heading up the street toward Hancock’s.

“Wonder what got into Miz Biggs,” Myra May said, when she was within speaking distance of Bessie. She glanced back, following Angelina’s progress across the street. “That lady really oughta look where she’s going. Heavy as she is, she’s kind of like a battering ram when she gets up a head of steam.”

“No idea what could have set her off that way,” Bessie said. “How are you, Myra May?”

“I’ve been better,” Myra May said grimly. “Have you seen Verna this morning?”

“No, I haven’t.” Bessie frowned. “Why? Is something the matter?”

Myra May looked as if she might be about to speak, then changed her mind. She shook her head mutely. “On my way to the grocery,” she muttered. “See you later, Bessie.”

Myra May’s evasiveness made Bessie curious, but she was still wondering why Angelina had come shooting out of the Dispatch office like a pebble out of a peashooter. Did it have something to do with Charlie Dickens? Surely not—their relationship was ancient history. Wasn’t it?

She opened the door and went inside. The newspaper occupied one large room (partitioned into several spaces) on the building’s street level beneath the second-floor law office where Liz Lacy worked. The front door opened with the chirpy ding-ding of a bell, and the visitor stepped up to a wooden counter a few paces inside, which was always stacked with the latest edition of the Dispatch. It was an eight-page weekly, four pages of ready print (world news, photos, comics, and women’s items printed by a shop in Mobile and shipped to Darling by Greyhound bus) and four pages of home print. Behind the counter was the editor’s desk and, behind that, a row of tall wooden bookshelves filled with bound volumes of newspapers formed a partition that blocked off the composing room, where the Linotype, type cases, makeup tables, and job press were located. Along the back wall sat the formidable-looking newspaper press surrounded by stacks of newsprint and buckets of ink. Charlie ran the press on Thursday nights, so he could get the Dispatch into the mail on Friday. When it was operating, it rattled every window in the old building and the windows of Hancock’s Groceries on one side and the Darling Diner on the other.

Just behind the customer counter, under a hanging lamp, stood the editor’s desk, with a black Remington typewriter, a dictionary, and a stack of wooden letter trays. That’s where Charlie Dickens was seated in a wooden desk chair, hunched over his typewriter and pecking furiously with two fingers, slamming the carriage hard when he came to the end of a line. An empty bottle of Hires Root Beer sat on the corner of his desk, next to an overflowing ashtray. The place smelled of cigarettes and ink. And of Angelina’s perfume.

Charlie looked up and saw Bessie and smiled, a little crookedly. He rolled his chair back, pushed himself out of it, and came to the counter. He was wearing his usual green eyeshade, and the sleeves of his white shirt were rolled up, his tie loosened. He was a large man, several years older than Bessie, and his hair was thinning on top. His penetrating gaze didn’t quite match the soft plumpness of his face.

“Bessie Bloodworth,” he said, in his rumbling voice. “Don’t see you in here much these days. How ya doin’ this mornin’?”

Bessie knew that Charlie Dickens had been to college and journalism school and spoke French and German as well as English. But she had heard him say that folks were always a little easier with him if he “talked down-home.” She thought he was probably right.

“I’m doing right well, thank you, Charlie,” Bessie said. She wanted to ask why Angelina Dupree Biggs had flown out of the Dispatch so fast that she barreled over anybody in her path, but she resisted the temptation, in part because of the downturn of Charlie’s mouth. His eyes were dark and he looked troubled. Whatever had propelled Angelina out the door obviously hadn’t made Charlie very happy, either.

So she settled for, “How’s Edna Fay? I saw in last week’s paper that she went down to Mobile for a week to visit your aunt.”

“She did,” Charlie said, “but she’s back now. I’ll tell her you asked.” He became businesslike. “Somethin’ I can do for you, Miss Bessie?” He reached for the pad on which he took down job printing orders or advertisements that people wanted to place in the paper. “You wantin’ to run another ad for your boardin’house, I reckon.”

He was obviously not interested in small talk, and Bessie had the feeling that this might not be a very good moment to ask him a favor. But she opened her purse and took out the folded paper Miss Rogers had given her.

“No, not an ad,” she said. “All my ladies are settled in for the duration, looks like.”